Whilst in an overall great condition this Victorian geometric tiled floor in Coalville had a few loose tiles that needed to be re-fixed. The loosening of the tiles was caused by vibration between the solid substrate beneath the tiles and the suspended timber floor in the next room.
This floor in Darlington consists of both an original Victorian tiled vestibule and a hallway laid with modern replicas. The house had been subject to a serious fire, as such the floor had become ingrained with carbon deposits and then dirt from the repair work that needed to be undertaken by the builders.
This Victorian floor in Alvaston Derby was covered with a smoke screen of old wood varnish was literally draining every ounce of life from the tiles. The problem with varnish is that is designed for covering timber and has a hard time lasting on tiles, usually flaking away in patches. The ingredients stain the lighter coloured tiles and make for a patchy appearance.
Here we have a Victorian floor in a famous period property in Budby Nottinghamshire which was in serious need of restoration. Having been trapped beneath carpet for the many years the tiles had become ingrained with dirt, the carpet adhesive had welded itself to the tiles and plenty of paints had soaked into the tile body.
This Victorian tiled hallway in Ely Cambridgeshire was full character locked beneath layers of dirt, glazed with old shellac varnish. Over the years dirt had become entrapped by different oil finishes that had been applied, the largest majority where removed by our eco friendly chemicals; some had soak too far into the tile body. After we stripped away the varnish it was the task of deep cleaning the floor and removing traces of cementitious haze and paint splatters.
Here we have two Victorian floors in Chesterfield that we have restored, a quarry tiled kitchen area and a geometric Victorian hallway with tiles by Campbell Tile & Brick.
Firstly the Victorian geometric floor required a lot of work, there were literally hundreds of loose tiles that needed reaffixing, this would have been a much simpler process if the floor hadn’t seen so much movement over the years, as a result the floor was very uneven; very hard to match the different floor levels.
A Victorian hallway tiled in a basket weave pattern of Minton Hollins tiles in Solihull West Midlands, overall the floor was in a nice solid condition with the odd character crack here and there. We reaffixed any loose tiles that were found before the cleaning process was started.
As you may see from the ‘before’ photos the floor was heavily stained with old oils, bitumen, solvent carpet adhesive and finally red paint. This was definitely a challenge, but a challenge we rose to.
There was an awful lot of oil staining on this Victorian floor restoration project in Blythe Bridge Staffordshire. The floor pattern made good use of some distinctive encaustic tiles along with a good use of colour that lent themselves very well to our colour enhancing sealers.
Our first task was to strip away all the previous coating or sealers, this would allow us to reach the real dirt and staining.
Plenty of staining from carpet adhesives and rubber underlays are dotted across this wonderful Victorian encaustic tiled hallway in Kettering Northamptonshire. As usual the natural earth coloured tiles are the worst affected by staining from the solvent adhesives, the less porous harder whites, blues and greens have largely avoided the same level of staining. Around the edges there was evidence of plasterers and builders mess ground into the border tiles.
A truly beautiful work of art. This original Minton floor in Chesterton Cambridgeshire dating from the 1850′s had a coating of old varnish applied over dirt creating a smoke screen effect that reduced the impact of these beautiful floors and in turn prevented the floor from breathing. The floor consisted of many highly detailed and intricate encaustic tiles along with some larger than the norm fields at 7 1/4″.